It will jazz up in the evening

Things slip, things also fall
In the morning slumber calls
In the wall-street-noon the devil smiles his dues
Writing this, I’m writing none
Waiting forever for my turn
In these top-ten times when chiclets rule

The singer has slit her tongue
The prophets are playing it dumb
These are not the times for us to be born
And the moment all should fall apart
I find a stain in my shirt
Of a lip which preferred to say nothing wrong

It will jazz up in the evening
The saxophone and the violins
The road will curve for a better bend
I’m matching up to the stride,
my little breathing June-child
Stay alive until the music ends…

Park Street swells like John Coltrane
Hydrants wash away holy rains
The blessings they are cherished by some few
The woman moves like Miles Davis
She is a sinner, might be diseased
But of secret chords, she might have certain clues

And I smile at those revellers
Those who try to jewel her
They are almost poets and she the bonnie muse
But I have chose another way
Though I have learnt to hum with their sway
But the high of oblivion I have refused

They will jazz up all these evenings
Even if I flee the orgies
The night will curve to the brighter side
I’m taking myself for a ride
My little flowing June-child
Breeze away until the music dies…

Sisters or sinners, its our choice
To lust for flesh or love the voice
We are free to choose and thus we are condemned
Waited too long, now we abandon Rome
Life is a disease, hope a symptom
Dreams are stuff better buried in our beds

I have spurned the throne, and thus the queen
Can’t be the bard of beauties and ruins
Too proud to kneel, being too vain to warn
Will turn you into a tree in the square
Me just a smoke in search of fire
And you too kind to lend some woods to burn

Sure it will jazz up in the evening
Even if I screw up the scene
The waltz will curve to a nicer turn
I bay for blood and wince at lights
My little darkling June-child
Dance away until the music burns…

I bang my head, I swear, I curse
I’ve shoved the shaft in our culture’s arse
But I still yearn to gift you a verse that is pure
I’m not in war, only hatching murders
I tremble at my edges and borders
I deepen the brow of the mask I’ll wear tomorrow

In a poem that was meant for you
I smirk at my face, I paint it blue
I’m afraid I might spread the juice in you
I know I’m just a faceless one
Neither the beast, nor the swan
And in this muck may you stay beautiful

And we’ll jazz it up in the evening
Since you are there, there is music
Music is the bliss to lift us higher up
Don’t stop listening to those unheard chimes
My little sleeping June-child
Dream away as long the music shines…

Image Courtesy: Breath by Kerem Sesen via FILE Magazine

Acceptance?

Soumik Datta, a student and friend and fellow-Cohenite, posted something which I am having the urge to quote in its entirety

What if you must have something on your mind constantly, not as an obsession possessing you, but as a perpetual contender to your attention, a corollary distraction to anything you’re consciously occupied with? Something neither driving you insane (for nothing ever will), nor yet letting you be…
You don’t receive as well anymore: you listen to music, and you only appreciate its ambiance; you watch movies, but they only affect you when they do so viscerally; and you can’t read, for the printed word offers the least degree of unconscious pleasure: it barely lulls you in despite distractions, like the rhythm of action, the resonance of sound. You can’t create in any form: for words sounds visions slip past you too fast, and you know not what you want to say nor how. Even intoxicants leave you high and dry, their effects restricted to the dullness or animation they bring to your spirit and body, and no more.
Context limits our choices in courses of action. And things makes less and less of a difference when you’re not free to initiate those courses that can make the difference.
If you must have and hold on to something on your mind, you must resign yourself to a restless exile: a loss of centre, and control. You must keep running, though you’ll have nowhere left to run to no more.
Do you say, ‘Don’t think twice, it’s alright’? Well, what else can you do.

***

Now here is one of my brighter students and I am not actually worried that he is not attending classes these days. That’s never a big deal, but the state-of-affairs above is, ’cause it succinctly describes the state I am in too. He named the post – tellingly enough – ‘acceptance’. Thus, here we are, teacher and student: ‘acceptance’ is such a great leveler!

The only difference is – and it is a goddamn pissing-off one – you are younger than me Soumik! I can, now, feel it ticking away in my body: the time of youth, the time when ought to start it, the work which then should have been patiently pursued for the rest of life. And I am absolutely clueless of what it should be, what is the shape of the work to come.